HC seeks accessibility solution at St Xavier’s School G'nagar for child with cerebral palsy

Ahmedabad: Will St Xavier’s High School in Gandhinagar shift a Class IX classroom to the ground floor for a student with cerebral palsy, or must the child access a first-floor classroom? Gujarat High Court is exploring a solution after the Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities ordered the school to admit the student to its Gujarati-medium section within 30 days.Following the commissioner’s order to admit the wheelchair-bound student on May 27, the school approached the high court, with its counsel seeking the court’s intervention while not explicitly saying that the school cannot admit the child. The lawyer submitted that the student studied till Class VIII in a govt school, and now his father wants to admit him in St Xavier’s High School in Class IX Gujarati medium. But the classroom is situated on the first floor.The lawyer further submitted that to accommodate a teacher with disability, the school has already shifted four classrooms to the ground floor. It questioned the commissioner’s order on the ground that the child’s father had already missed the deadline in submitting the admission form, and the allegations against the school authorities in neglecting him did not hold much water.The govt pleader defended the commissioner’s order to the school and asserted that the child and his father’s wish to get the best education must be honoured.

After the preliminary hearing, Justice Nikhil Kariel issued notice to the authorities concerned and ordered, “It would be appropriate if a senior officer from the office of the district education officer, Gandhinagar, preferably the district education officer himself, visits the petitioner-school on July 7, 2026, after appropriate coordination with the school authorities and tries to find a way whereby the ward of respondent No.

3 (the child’s father) could be accommodated in the petitioner-school, more particularly considering the nature of disabilities suffered by the ward of respondent No. 3.”HC further said, “Let an appropriate via media be found out, which would be suitable to the interest of the school as well as to the interest of the ward in question by the next returnable date.” The next hearing will take place on July 10.